Saturday, March 29, 2014

Palms for the not so poor

A year or so ago, when I had just stared working on my New Kingdom Egyptian Army, I visited out recently relocated local Hobby Town. Aside from general modeling and scenic supplies, they usually have little of interest to Historical wargamers. However, this time they had this new range of exceptionally nice, iof quite pricey trees, JTT Scenery products (they do a lot more than just trees as well). They are distributed in the US by Model Rectifier Corporation. The ones that especially caught my eye were these:

3" Phoenix Palms.

Out of the box...

The large spike on the bottom, evidently intended for anchoring in foam board or similar.

I was a little hesitant to try cutting it off, so a made a raised base to accommodate the trees out of some round Masonite and MDF bases glued together, an then drilled a suitable sized hole for the spike.

and glued it in place with white glue.

I have a can of this stuff from way back; it is useful for building up "ground" on bases. Mix the powder with order into a stiff paste, and apply like spackle. How old is it - the price tag says $1.99!The slogan and logo probably say about as much about the age of the product, too!

The bases after apply the water putty.

It hardens fully in a few hours, faster the less water is used.

I painted the Duirham's Water Putty with CC "Terracotta" (it takes Latex paint very well), and applied a few "tufts" to the bases.

The applied white glue glue and my sand/fine talus mixture to the bases.

Different than your usual palm trees; the "fronds are actually soft metal, so care will be needed in transport!

White I was at it, I added the same flocking mixture to some more standard plastic palm trees I got at a flea market in new Brunswick, NJ circa 1982.

A little dry brushing to the bases to suggest palm roots.

The same Phoenix palm trees on my "Desert" ground cloth. I see these as being alongside temples, statues, etc for their visual impact.